Administrative Discretion And The Rule Of Law
- IJLLR Journal
- Dec 31, 2024
- 2 min read
Rakshita Choudhary, Post-graduate from Institute of Law, Nirma University
ABSTRACT
India is one of the world’s largest democratic countries. It functions on the principles laid in the grundnorm of the country i.e. the Constitution of India and believes in the supremacy of law. During the transition phase of the country from being a Police State under colonial era to being a Welfare State, the domain of responsibilities of the government expanded and did not remain confined to just the security of the nation. It was then that the responsibilities were delegated to the executive also to fill up the loopholes left by the legislature by exercising administrative functions. These were the arenas with no fixed laws and thus kept the scope open for the exercise of discretion by the administrative authorities in the exercise of their administrative functions and since then, the authorities have been exercising this discretion as a part of routine. However, the question which pops up here is what about the supremacy of law? Isn’t the exercise of discretion contrary to the principle ‘law is above all’? Isn’t the act of administrative discretion a violation of rule of law or is there a balance between the two? All these questions grasped the interest of the researcher and thus have been studied via this article. The article commences at the common understanding of the principle of rule of law. Following that, the next segment of the article explains administrative discretion and arenas where the discretion is likely to be exercised. Towards the latter half of the article researcher discusses the nexus and balance between the rule of law and administrative discretion and if both the principles can stand together in a democratic nation like India.
Keywords: Administrative Discretion, Rule of Law, Administration, Arbitrary Discretion, India
